


Welcome Home

by Aibhilin



Category: One Piece
Genre: Fluff, Found Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-01
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 01:47:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,173
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27326782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aibhilin/pseuds/Aibhilin
Summary: Opening the door is an easy feat; more difficult is entering the space, when his eyes fall unto Makino-san’s gestalt behind the counter.The woman is… smaller, somehow. Or he’s grown taller, in the meantime.Yeah, that could actually be the case – it doesn’t fail to bring a smile to his face, and he chuckles lightly as he makes his way inside, a smooth line on his lips, “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” hand resting lightly on his top hat for comfort purposes, he shades his eyes a little and adds, “I’m back, Makino-san.”
Relationships: Koala & Sabo (One Piece), Makino & Portgas D. Ace, Makino & Sabo (One Piece), Portgas D. Ace & Sabo
Comments: 6
Kudos: 59





	Welcome Home

**Author's Note:**

> This one is the excess of what I wrote for the [ASL Zine](https://twitter.com/ASLbasedZine) and I only figured out it didn't fit with what I'd put down into my rough summary for my piece once I'd already written the bulk of it... XD that happens when you write and write and write and don't think much... ah well. All the more for you to read, dear readers! :D
> 
> Enjoy!

_A man travels the world over in search for what he needs and returns home to find it._

~George Augustus Moore, _The Brook Kerith_

* * *

The leaves crunch beneath his shoes. He’s smartly dressed, as is his habit. His blue trousers contrast nicely with the black boots he’s put on. The darker blue shirt is topped by his usual pristine white cravat. The deeply black coat he’s wearing is his favourite. As is the top hat, naturally with the goggles on.

Autumn colours surround him as he’s walking, ambling along a well-worn path towards the village he’s barely set foot in when he was a child. Foosha village, huh. Sabo never did get to explore it as much as his curiosity would have demanded it, had he even so much as had an inkling that it existed, back then.

Funny, Luffy did mention Makino and the pirates, but neither Sabo nor Ace ever demanded to be told more about the place where he grew up in, in the first place. Their youngest brother certainly has a habit of sharing way too much information about things and yet saying nothing at all.

Then again, it clearly isn’t necessary, seeing as Dadan has sent him to greet Makino in the village and shown him the way there, in the first place. Nervousness hasn’t ever befitted a second-in-command of the Revolutionary Army, and Sabo won’t make this the first time to exhibit any signs of it.

Well, outwardly, at least.

His staff is at its habitual place, placed comfortingly against his back, a weight that’s as much a reassurance as it is familiar.

The memories he’s lost have been of Makino-san, as well. He’s wondering how she’ll take it, his excuse to not have visited once in the past… decade, or so. Squaring his shoulders, he ambles on, leisurely taking one step after the other towards what is obviously the local bar.

Makino-san’s.

He hadn’t ever pegged her for a bar owner, but then again, that’s just adding to her charms, part-time foster mother that she was to them back then.

Arriving at the door, he knocks on it, twice, sharply. A marine’s knock.

“Come in!” a female voice answers him and it’s been- it’s been so long, such a long time, so many memories ago that he scrambles to put a face to it. Makino-san, that is Makino-san’s voice.

Opening the door is an easy feat; more difficult is entering the space, when his eyes fall unto Makino-san’s gestalt behind the counter.

The woman is… smaller, somehow. Or he’s grown taller, in the meantime.

Yeah, that could actually be the case – it doesn’t fail to bring a smile to his face, and he chuckles lightly as he makes his way inside, a smooth line on his lips, “It’s been a while, hasn’t it?” hand resting lightly on his top hat for comfort purposes, he shades his eyes a little and adds, “I’m back, Makino-san.”

Her hand goes to her mouth, her eyes open wide and her whole being trembles. He can sense her inner turmoil from where he’s standing. That’s. Emotional situations have never been any of their forte – not Ace’s, not Luffy’s – and while Sabo’s obviously the best one out of them to handle them, he’s always preferred to barge in and deal with the consequences later. Or even, never. And let Koala handle that, in his stead.

Whelp, can’t be helped, then. Lifting his head, he lets her look her fill and – of course, he’s already anticipated it, hasn’t he? – she throws down the towel she’s been holding and then she’s running around the counter and his feet move, too, and right towards him and then he trips over his own two left feet, right, because that’s what you do, and he can barely refrain from rolling his eyes and she catches him in her arms.

How about that, for first impressions, eh? Sighing in frustration at himself, he straightens up immediately, and is pulled in for a hug the very next moment.

“I thought you’d died.” A whisper makes him freeze up in the embrace, eyes wide and mouth not working properly, at all. His words fail him, for once.

“We all thought that.” She moves out of the hug, loosely having her arms wrapped around him, still, taking in all of his new looks, his changed appearance, aged with the ten years he’s been away.

“Ace-“ he chokes on the word, chokes on the feelings evoked by the name alone, chokes on the inevitable fate that befell one of them, his absence felt even more now that Sabo is here, on Dawn Island, on their home island, right in the home of one of his brothers and he almost can’t breathe right.

“Ace is dead.” Her utterance is the final nail in the coffin that is his brother’s, her eyes filled with sad understanding about what he’s communicating. “I’m sorry for your loss” or “My condolences” doesn’t sound right on his tongue – it’s both their loss, isn’t it, that he’s gone, that he’s-

Her expression clears up when she says, “You’re alive. I’m so happy you’re alive.”

His smile mirrors hers and for a heartbeat, he tries valiantly not to tear up _in front of his former foster-mother-turned-older-sister_. Koala would have a field day, he’s sure, so he resolves never to let her know about this moment of weakness.

When she turns, it’s with a relieved sigh on his part – he doesn’t have to save face if she doesn’t see him, does he? – and he grimaces at her back for a moment.

“Would you like something to drink? Will you be staying for lunch?” her questions are fired at him from where she arrives at one of the shelves, rummaging through it for, ah, a plate and some cutlery and a glass are placed on the counter next.

Truth be told, he didn’t want to, wasn’t prepared to-

The glass is filled with milk and the scene is so utterly reminiscent of the time when the barmaid visited them at the mountain bandits – she poured the three of them milk back then, too, the only one to do so at the time – that his body betrays him as it moves on automatic and he flops down into a bar stool in front of the plate, instead of heading the other way and out the door and to where he and Koala have decided to meet up next.

Koala can wait for a while longer, he decides, mentally preparing to weather her complaints already.

The milk is sweet on his tongue – Sabo is not sure if that’s the memories tinging it with an abundance of sweetness or if the milk naturally tastes sweet, here. Makino-san smiles at him from behind the counter and she opens a wormhole of retellings and anecdotes when she innocently asks him, “What have you been up to? Have you met Luffy?”

Unnoticed by the two, the day passes them by in a breeze.

It’s a day well spent.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you liked it, dear readers! Thank you very much for reading~!
> 
> If you're in the mood for it, I wouldn't mind a comment?


End file.
